5 Quick Tips: The Writers Of Organic SEO

This content is 2 years old. Please, read this page keeping its age in mind as SEO changes rapidly and while the past is useful to remember and reference, it often doesn't provide the best strategies to apply today.

Well, it’s been a few weeks since we’ve been able to publish our 5 Quick Tips. You can blame Penguin Updates and Mozcon’s for that but gratefully we’re back to it. This week we’re going to keep it to 5 quick things you’ll want to do every day because today we’re covering 5 people you need to follow to get a solid analysis of what’s happening in organic search and how it will impact you and your rankings. This is to build on a previous list of news sources to keep updated with the facts which you can find at https://beanstalkim.com/blog/2016/09/5-quick-tips-keeping-date/.

So, while I try to keep up on the news and evaluate what’s going on with my 15 years of experience, here are the top five SEO writers I rely on to help me see things from a different angle or analyze things outside my area of expertise.

#1 – Rand Fishkin

I’m sure there’s no need to outline who Rand Fishkin is but if you’ve been living under a rock he’s the founder of Moz. He has the great perk of having some very talented folks around him who undoubtedly help him keep up and brainstorm what things mean but his own knowledge base and of delivery combined with anything his staff might add makes him a go-to. His famous Whiteboard Fridays are especially entertaining. To illustrate, here’s a recent (as of this writing) Whiteboard Friday video that does a solid job of explaining how Rankbrain works:

#2 – Marieke van de Rakt

Until recently I didn’t know Marieke but I’m glad I do now. She’s a Project Manager for Yoast and has a PhD in Social Sciences. She tends to write more towards content strategy and engagement but does stray from that from time to time lending insight into keyword research and other more “traditional SEO” area. I find her insights spot on and the strategies she discussed thoughtful. She seems to write about one a week so it won’t take a ton of your time and is well worth it. You can find her material on her Yoast author page or on Twitter.

#3 – Bill Slawski

Making both my SEO news list and SEO analysis lists is Bill Slawski. I included him in the SEO news list because he covers patents and often before I’m even aware of them. I include him in this list because his analysis of those patents and often other complex areas of search and ability to put them into layperson’s terms is second-to-none. If you want to get an insight into where Google is headed and the systems they’re looking into to create that world, Bill is a must-read and I do so regularly. You can find him on SEO By The Sea or on Twitter.

#4 – Aaron Wall

I don’t even remember how long I’ve been following Aaron Wall but I’ve been in SEO for about 15 years and I’ve probably followed him as long as that and reading his work before that to learn the ropes. He writes for his site SEO Book and does a great job of looking into major issues (like … say … Penguin Update), reading what he can, assessing what it means and putting a thoughtful summary and conclusion together. You can find him writing on the SEO Book blog or on Twitter.

#5 – Dr. Pete Meyers

I generally don’t like to include two people from any one company in lists but I’d simply be remiss not to in this case. Dr. Pete Meyers has an incredibly high level of knowledge and experience in SEO and ranking factors and a doctorate in psychology giving him a unique perspective when he writes. What I tend to appreciate most about Pete’s writing is that is tends to be extremely well researched and includes a lot of the data he’s building his conclusions on allowing the reader to think for themselves what else it might mean. His knowledge on how crawlers and complex systems work is aided by his work at Moz. You can keep up with his writing on his Moz profile and on Twitter.

While worth monitoring daily in your rounds on Twitter most of these folks tend to write roughly weekly so it should just take a bit of time each day to keep up. And while these are five of my go-to authors there are others out there that should be read as well. I can’t include them here of course because then it wouldn’t be 5 Quick Tips and I could keep you reading all day long. Just keep your eyes (and brain) open and you’ll quickly spot who they are.